Does the face of TB communication need to change?

It began with the movies and with literature. TB and the suffering that TB patients went through were in turns, romanticized, tragedized and stereotyped. Came the time when the images of TB got fixed on thin, emaciated people coughing blood into white handkerchiefs, long-suffering children going out in search of work to support their ailing parent or a lover nursing his/her ailing partner back to health. That TB is a curable disease; that there is life after TB; that there is hope – all these seem to have been forgotten even in the way we communicate about TB. The messages are there; they are all in the right direction, but the imaging has not changed. It is common knowledge that imaging is extremely important while positioning anything, be it a product or a disease or a service. People relate to images, they respond to images and they can be influenced by how we image something. JATB and Aequum are attempting to change the face of TB communication. Here are two samples. Feedback is invited. Suggestions are welcome.

These posters are conceptualised, developed and designed by Aequum, with support from The Lilly MDR TB Partnership and Karnataka Health Promotion Trust (KHPT), Bangalore. The experience I have gained by writing on TB and by interacting with the TB sector through JATB has greatly helped my understanding of the gaps in the TB sector – in this case, communication. These posters are free for use. Kindly acknowledge the creators i.e. Aequum.